Rocky Desertification Poverty Effect In Karst Mountainous Areas Of Southwest China

Rocky desertification poverty effect refers to such a phenomenon or mechanism of accumulated poverty in the rural area which is hard to get rid of and is caused by inappropriate human activities leading to land degradation and ecological degradation, bedrock bareness or soil layer attenuation, further leading to decreasing of available land or reduction of productivity of land, farmers’loss of earning under such fragile Karst ecological environment; whereas, reduction of vegetation resources and such kind of reverse evolution of ecological environment would induce vulnerability of the ecological environment and weaken its capability in withstanding loss of water and land and drought, as a result of which, development costs in the rural area would be increased. To be short, rocky desertification poverty effect is a phenomenon or mechanism within which poverty in the rural area is triggered or increased due to rocky desertification. In this thesis, a research combining rocky desertification and poverty in the rural area will be taken as the starting point, pilot area in Bijie will be taken as the research object, with RS, GIS technologies and mathematical statistic method, concrete functional modes imposed by such rocky desertification in Karst mountain area in the southwestern part of China to poverty in the rural area will be discussed and studied from both macro and micro perspectives, in order to analyze the mechanism of action of rocky desertification poverty effect in Karst mountain area in the southwestern part of China and put forward corresponding strategies in combating and eradicating rocky desertification poverty. All related work and research methods are as follows:(1) Spatial-temporal evolution process of rocky desertification and its features in Bijie experimental area. Based on software and platforms such as ArcGIS9.3and ENV15.0, by using decision tree classification method, images in Landsat TM (2005,2006and2010, etc.) will be interpreted and analyzed in terms of spatial transforming, so that the spatial-temporal evolution process for such rocky desertification will be re-presented and deduced from multiple aspects such as evolution methods, evolution direction and evolution speed, etc., besides, features of such evolution will also be analyzed.(2) Evolution process and features for relative poverty in rural area under the background of rocky desertification control. Through a brief review of the background of rocky desertification control in Bijie experimental area, poverty incidence, poverty gap index, FGT poverty index, Gini coefficient and total assets of the rural families will be adopted as respective indexes for measuring the relative poverty in the rural area, evolution process and features of relative poverty in the rural area in Bijie experimental area for a period lasting from2000until2010will be analyzed, together with rocky desertification process as the basis, influences on relative poverty in the rural area from evolution and prevention of rocky desertification will be studied.(3) Studies on the mechanism of action of rocky desertification poverty effect. In this study, Tongjing will be taken as a experimental research object, through micro perspective, with the purpose of discovering the source triggers, starting from both aspects of land degradation features and ecological degradation features inborn with rocky desertification, along with such a train of thought that land resources and ecological resources will be impacted due to triggering and deterioration of rocky desertification, which further contributes to changes in structure of land using, loss of industrial income in the rural area, industrial structure will thus be altered, economy in the rural area will be impacted, concrete functional methods imposed by rocky desertification to poverty in rural area will be studied with more attention, in order to explain the mechanism of action of rocky desertification poverty effect.(4) Researches on area classification and prevention measures for rocky desertification. Based on a basic train of thought which is an organic combination of rocky desertification prevention engineering and rural poverty alleviation engineering, a mode of "drainage basin-rocky desertification-rural economy" will be established to divide Bijie experimental area into11rocky desertification prevention areas, together with respective features within each area, rocky desertification prevention measures and specialized treatment modes will be summarized. Conclusions drawn from this research are as follows:(1)Rocky desertification in Bijie experimental area is featured by typical temporal and spatial differentiations. Within the last10years, evolution of rocky desertification has been on hike at the beginning and then up to gradual stability, rocky desertification area increased from7437.19km2in2000to7762.13km2in2005and later reduced to7692.41km2in2010. Although preliminary suppressing has been achieved in combating expansion of rocky desertification, some regional areas are still deteriorating, atmosphere for prevention treatment is still rigorous; gradual progressing is the most rampant one among all the other evolution modes for rocky desertification which covers10003.84km2, followed by the leaping mode which covers763.39km2, the last one is the adverse progressing method which covers43.69km2. Both improving and deteriorating exist along the evolution direction of rocky desertification, with both the slight improving and slight deteriorating covering relatively large areas which are4698.61km2and3966.81km2respectively; Such a phenomenon of treatment followed by devastating has not been eradicated; evolution speed of rocky desertification is divided into turning-in speed and turning-out speed, for middle-sized rocky desertification, its turning-in speed is more than its turning-out speed, thus, its comprehensive evolution speed is the highest, which is43.51km2/a, potential rocky desertification and gentle rocky desertification are two main origins for supplementing the middle-sized rocky desertification, they have contributed respectively771.06km2and913.12km2within the last decade; although the potential rocky desertification is defined as non-rocky desertification, it is so unstable that tends to be converted into rocky desertification.(2) Evolution of rocky desertification and corresponding treatment engineering have influenced both spatial-temporal evolution of rural economy. Within the last decade, relative poverty of the rural area in Bjjie experimental area has been improved, among which, poverty generation rate in the rural area has been decreasing, from32.80%in2000to19.40%in2010, correspondingly, poverty population has reduced from2.0558million in2000to0.9381million; the poverty gap index in the rural area went through such evolution feature in which, it went up first, then went towards stability and finally went down, which can be explained by concrete data that in2000it was25.46%, and increased to33.00%in2003, and finally dropped to22.07%in2010; FGT2poverty index went up then down, from0.0335in2000to0.0401in2003and then dropped to0.0132in2010; the Gini coefficient was around0.3, indicating that it was relatively rational among all farmers’income distributions, no great discrepancy in income differences occurred back at that time; Family total assets in the rural area has been gradually increased, preliminary achievements have been made through adjustment of industrial structures, ratio of income from planting industry has been decreasing; evolution of rocky desertification and implementation of corresponding treatment engineering have exerted significant influences towards evolution of rural economy, especially within the preliminary period of implementing rocky desertification treatment engineering, fluctuations have happened to both strength and depth of relative poverty in the rural area; fruits obtained through ecological environment construction and poverty alleviation in the rural area are still vulnerable since they are easily to be impacted by natural disasters; with continuous implementation of such engineering, new increasing points lately cultivated are gradually taking effects, and economic level in the rural area is increasingly improved.(2) Rocky desertification deprives partial development opportunities for farmers to improve their living conditions via agriculture. Rocky desertification reduces farmers’income from agriculture, foresting and stock raising mainly through compressing their available land resources, reducing land fertility, deteriorating ecological fragility, weakening ability of ecological system in fighting against water and soil loss, weakening ability of ecological system in defending against drought disaster, which further lead to loss of agricultural fringe income, therefore, farmers would change their original producing methods conscientiously or unconscientiously and turn to non-agriculture or foresting or stock raising which can bring them more income. Whereas, due to rocky desertification, there was no choice for farmers except for wild land development or searching of more fertilized land source with more layers to develop fruit foresting and manmade lawn, therefore, rocky desertification has deprived opportunities of utilizing original forest lands and wild grass lands for development of fruit foresting and stock raising from farmers. Once it is found that such rocky desertification has caused changes or evolutions in land source and ecological source, poverty caused by rocky desertification can be eradicated through accurate, timely and efficient regulation of industrial structures, so that economy in the rural area will develop towards industries with more benefits, farmers’income will be increased, pressure for farmers in utilizing land source and ecological source will be alleviated, together with effective prevention and treatment measures. Whereas, if rocky desertification has caused changes or evolutions in land source and ecological source, keeping original producing methods or maintaining a stagnant status in industrial structure regulation would lead to deteriorating of ecological environment, continuous decreasing of farmers’ income and falling into such rocky desertification poverty.(3) Eradicate rocky desertification by means of organic combination of both rocky desertification treatment and poverty alleviation. Eradication of rocky desertification poverty is the final target for researches in effects of rocky desertification poverty, it is also a concrete implementation strategy in resolving rocky desertification poverty, it is a starting point for combing theories with practices, besides, organic combination of both rocky desertification treatment and poverty alleviation is the most powerful solution for resolving rocky desertification poverty. With such a basic train of thought in which both rocky desertification treatment and poverty alleviation are organically combined, a mode of "drainage basin-rocky desertification-rural economy" will be established to divide Bijie experimental area into11rocky desertification prevention areas. After that, based on the mechanism of action of rocky desertification poverty effects, according to authentic desertification situation, economic development level and natural resource conditions in the rural area in respective11divided areas, rocky desertification prevention measures and specialized treatment modes will be summarized.In this thesis, mechanism of action imposed by rocky desertification towards rural poverty has been disclosed from a micro perspective, it is indicated in this thesis that rocky desertification reduces farmers’ agricultural income, foresting income and income from stock raising by means of impacting local land resource and ecological resource, then further influences and alters local industrial structure and exerts influences on the rural economy, i.e.,"rocky desertification-innate resources-industrial structures-rural economy"; in addition to that, such rocky desertification poverty in the Karst area of southwestern part of China is actually a kind of poverty caused by depriving local farmers of their development opportunities in improving their living conditions through agriculture development; Once it is found that such rocky desertification has caused changes or evolutions in land source and ecological source, poverty caused by rocky desertification can be eradicated through accurate, timely and efficient regulation of industrial structures is critical solution in preventing local area falling into such rocky desertification poverty. Besides, based on such a basic train of thought in which both rocky desertification treatment and poverty alleviation are organically combined, a mode of "drainage basin-rocky desertification-rural economy" established, in order to divide Bijie experimental area into11rocky desertification prevention areas; Breaking of connecting section within the circle of "rocky desertification梚nnate resources-industrial structures-rural economy" will be taken as a breakthrough point, with increasing land resources, ecological inborn resources and industrial structure regulation in the rural area as focused point, rocky desertification prevention measures and specialized treatment modes are summarized. This has supplied good examples for those poverty areas caused by concentrated rocky desertification in ecological environment rebuilding and development of poverty alleviation. Therefore, this thesis is equipped with certain practical significance and theoretical innovations.